Page 54 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
Butshe’swrong there. If I was as powerful as all that, her smile wouldn’t stop at her lips. Something’s eating at Alice, and as I pull the truck out of its parking spot, I realize that much as I want the fabled trust we’re building, I don’t have the guts to ask her what it is.
Chickenshit, that little voice warns from deep within. And it’s not wrong. I am chickenshit, because I don’t want to ask her what’s on her mind, only to find out she’s already having second thoughts about me. If Alice is gonna disappear, I don’t want to see it coming.
I want to be happy ’til the happiness runs out. And if it does—hell, if the past serves as a pattern—whenit does, I’ll face the music. Until then, we have citrus to procure, and a town to protect from the Hunt.
Barnes Whitney leansagainst his ancient pickup in the parking lot of the Stardust. He’s a tall Black man, lean, with an elegant, poetic temperament. As I park, he waves, pushing off histruck and adjusting the canvas jacket he’s worn since we were teenagers. It’s a comforting sight after the past hour’s events.
Alice claps, gasping as she slides out of the truck. The back of Barnes’s old Ford isfullof crates of various citrus. Barnes grins as Alice is drawn into the orbit of the sunshiny fruit. His cousins run one of the groves down south, and we’re lucky to have a direct line this far north. Not everyone has access to citrus these days.
“I’m headed up to Mill Creek,” Barnes says as Alice rests her chin on the sidewall of the bed of his truck. “So I’m all loaded up.”
Alice nods. “I’ve never seen this much all together. What’s it like in the Groves?”
Barnes winks at me as I point to the main office, stepping aside just enough for me to see that there’s a rifle resting on the bench seat of his truck. I nod to him. Barnes is good people. We’ve worked together on a bunch of jobs. Some of his people grow citrus, and others hunt monsters. Barnes is a bit of everything, and manages to also be a bit of everywhere, too, bringing bits and bobs of things and news alike back with him every time he comes home.
Alice is safe with him, but I press a hand to the small of her back to let her know where I’ll be. “I’m gonna go chat with Marion real quick.”
She nods, but her stream of questions about the Groves falls from her tongue like the jewels from old tales. Barnes is as drawn into her questions as she is to the load of citrus, and I leave the two of them to chat about fruit.
Inside the motel’s lobby, Marion is painting a tiny wooden dog. She glances up at me as the bell on the door rings. “Your crate’s by the old Harkness House.”
I glance at the miniature street she’s moved to the front of the lobby. She’s reconstructed all of the houses from our childhoodthat had to be torn down for one reason or another. Sure enough, there’s a crate labeled “HAYES” in Fallon’s big, bold lettering. But I don’t move to pick it up.
“You hearing anything weird about redcaps?” I ask, leaning against the counter. The tribe’s bound to have better information than even Caden’s got access to.
Marion shakes her head. “Not much more than you, probably. Something weird’s going on.”
I nod. “You think this is all the Hunt?”
She shrugs. “That’s more your area.”
I watch her dip her tiny paintbrush into the red paint and give the dog a tongue. When she sets it down, I ask, “What about the hikers that went missing? Hear about them?”
Marion shakes her head slowly. “Strangest thing. There’s not a damn thing to find out—about any of them.”
My forehead creases, the muscles in my shoulders drawing together, tight and tense. “Well, that’s not right.”
Slowly, Marion nods, setting the paintbrush down. “The only thing that’s unique about them is the fact that there’s not asinglespecial thing about any of them. They were all as average as can be for visitors to the area. Bland. Rich but not too rich. White. A variety of ages.”
We know all this already, but the tribe’s got different access to government resources than we do, and I’ve always known that Marion’s got her hand in more than she lets on with their affairs. “Too clean?”
Marion nods, pursing her lips. “Not even a parking citation.”
I shake my head. “Impossible. They were all from the cities.”
“I know,” Marion says, and her tone’s ominous. “Someone made very,verysure there was nothing to find, about any of them.”
That sure sounds like Sector, but Marion and I both know that there’s forces worse than Sector out there. Ones that wouldknow how to make it look like Sector pulling one of their more “advanced” routines. This is the kind of 3D chess that I despise, fucking with real people’s lives for what always turns out to be heinous means. Humans at their worst really aren’t much different than the High with Their eyeball ice cubes.
The bone-deep ache that says it doesn’t matter how much we reform, that we’ll always circle back to this nonsense, swells within me. The only thing to do in a moment like this is caremoreabout the people right in front of me.
I glance out at Barnes, who’s watching Alice’s hands flutter around as she talks about something. She’s speaking rather passionately, and I wonder what she’s telling him.
“What about her?” I ask, knowing Marion. “You find anything odd about Alice?”
The corner of Marion’s mouth quirks up into a smile. “She’s on Sector’s radar. Little bit of a thorn in their side, always just a bit too close to truths they don’t want average folks knowing. That blog of hers was a problem.”
I nod slowly. “So nothing suspicious?”
